Mccoll2005

transcript

The Googlezonization of information provision: the end of the road for libraries?

or Virtual fire and floodJohn MacColl, University of Edinburgh

A co-production with

From an original idea byStephen Pinfield, University of Nottingham

Co-starring ideas from Herbert Van de Sompel, LANL

Ross Atkinson, Cornell University Library

Edinburgh University Library, Friday 17 June 2005

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“The roof is on fire”: is this the end of libraries?

Is Googlezon our salvation?

“Within the existing system, libraries are trying hard to optimize the output of a system with far from optimal input”

“It has become increasingly difficult for libraries to fulfil their fundamental role of safeguarding equity of access”

“In the PDF version of the information chain, libraries are aggregating the aggregators. That is a lot of aggregating for a digital world.”

“At the core of the problems that libraries are facing is the total dependency on information held upstream in the information chain”

“As such, there are numerous incentives for libraries:• to rethink themselves• to be pro-active in exploring alternative mechanisms for scholarly communication”

“The academic community must consider … the creation of a control zone. Such a control zone should be understood as something that is technically and conceptually separate from the open zone.”

Library Quarterly, 1996

Libraries: the good news

• Libraries are close to authors: – a great position to obtain institutional material– a great position to archive institutional material

• Libraries are fast at embracing new technologies• Libraries have very knowledgeable people• Libraries provide a level of redundancy in services

that is no longer required in a digital environment• The Library as an institution that safeguards equity

of access has global representation

Libraries: the bad news

• As organisations libraries are slow movers, hosted by slowly moving institutions

• Libraries are slow to recognize the fact that a new technology may allow (or beg) for a new mode of operation

• The information world runs on Internet time

What can we learn from Googlezon?• ‘Community of recommendation’:

citations & impact• Need for much more content• Need for better discovery algorithms• Text-mining should be our business• But is it sensible to deal with Googlezon?• Google appears to have scholarly integrity, but is

fuelled by advertising based on inbound links, which can be bought by desperate companies

• Just because it can’t be undercut doesn’t mean it can’t be bettered …

“Some form of “regionalism”, that is, the creation of private regions in the control zone, will therefore probably be unavoidable – because some commercial publishers will continue to own the content of some publications and will survive and prosper through the sale of that content.”

Library Quarterly, 1996

The end of the road for libraries?

Only if …

• We continue with handcrafted solutions for metadata

• We don’t think boldly about what users want and expect from a library portal

• We don’t value our collective power as a major research content owner and provider

• We don’t pool our resources to build a Googlezon of our own (‘LibraryZone’?)

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1 April 2007

Exhibition of Scott letters in Exhibition Room … Fines Amnesty during June … Library lecture‘The death of information’ May 15th … Have your say on eating in libraries … User survey …

Not the end of the road, but beginning the construction of a new one?

Thank you!

john.maccoll@ed.ac.uk

Mccoll2005

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